Tuesday, 15 March 2016

In this song, Brassens purports
to tell what happened to him when he assiduously adopted the Christian
lifestyle that Blaise Pascal, in the 17th century, recommended to a friend, a
Sceptic, whom he hoped to save from eternal damnation. Brassens is typically
irreverent, but his well-informed interest in Pascal's ideas, suggests that he
felt admiration for the great man, who, though dead three hundred years before,
is still his neighbour upstairs (line 5).

In a recent poll carried out
among devoted Brassens fans, this song emerged as a top favourite.

Is there in our time anything more odiousMore despairing than not to believe in God?

I'd like to have the faith -rock-hard of my coalman

Who’s happy as a lark and stupid as they come.

My neighbour there on high, a certain Blaise PascalHas kindly given me this counsel of a friend :

Get down upon your knees, pray and entreat the Lord,

Pretend that you believe and soon believe you will.

I started to pour forth, kneecaps upon the ground,All the "Ave Marias" - all the "Our Fathers" ,On the streets, in cafes, on the trains - upon buses,All the De Profundis , all the morpionibus

At that very juncture, finding thrown on a tip

A cassock just my size, I dressed myself in it

And then freshly tonsured, with my guitar in hand ,I set off on my way to the faith that redeems.

I chanced on a gaggle of strong church devotees

Thinking me some other, in chorus they told me:

Father, sing to us then some choice sacred refrain,Some holy song in the way only you know how.

Strumming furiously the strings b‘neath my fingers ,

I intoned Le Gorille and then Putain de Toi.Shouting “Get him the fraud, the traitor, hypocrite!"They want me to suffer Abelard's torturous fate

I am about to swell the ranks of harem eunochs.No more will fair maidens come cling to my bosom,

Thanks to my high-pitched voice, I will get prime position

Among the Little Singers of the Wooden CrossDrawn there by the noise, a charitable ladySays to them them: “What ‘re you up to? Stop it, you wretches!There're so many men now, who are oddly inclined

Obstinately to take Cupid, the wrong way round.

So many men deprived of their virile charms From those who still have them, Let us not take them off! "

These forceful arguments made a great impression,

I was allowed to leave with a great ovation.

But on the path to heaven, I’ll take no further stepFaith will come on its own or it won't come at all.I’ve never killed anyone, nor raped anyone either.

It’s a good long while since last I went a-thieving.If a God should exist, he can see, all in all

I’m scarcely any worse than were I a believer.

LE MÉCRÉANT TRANSLATION NOTES

1) la foi d'mon charbonnier – coalmen had
the traditional image of simple, primitive folk – originally they were charcoal
burners away for long periods in the forests. Thus there are sayings such as:
“Charbonnier est maître chez soi” – even the most humble is free to do as they
wish in their own home.

2)
un certain Blais' Pascal - Blaise Pascal
(1623 -1662) was an outstanding French intellectual who made important
contributions to mathematics and physics.. Later he became a convinced
Christian and tried to use the logic of his scientific background to show why
anyone should seek to live a Christian life. In this poem, Brassens is
putting Pascal’s proposals to the test in his own life. I will look at
these arguments in more detail in supplementary notes on Pascal at the end of
this post.

3) Faites
semblant de croire, et bientôt vous croirez. – This line is a direct reference
to what is now known as “Pascal’s wager” – in French “Le pari de Pascal
“. He made the
claim that belief is logically justified because: Si Dieu n’existe pas, on ne
perdra rien à croire à lui, alors que s’il existe, on perdra tout en n’y
croyant pas.”

4) Tous les De Profundis – This is a very
appropriate text for Brassens to use as he begins to test the efficacy of
prayer. “De Profundis” are the first words of psalm 130, which in the King
James’s version reads: “Out of the depths, have I cried unto thee, O
Lord- Lord, hear my voice; let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my
supplications.”

5) tous les morpionibus.. – In contrast
with (4) above, this is a totally inappropriate text for Brassens to use as a
prayer. In spite of the apparently Latin title, it is an excruciatingly
obscene song. I looked it up on the Web to find two lines to quote in
contrast with the psalm above but found it too revolting. “De Profundis
Morpionibus” appeared in 1864 and the words were written by the famous poet,
Théophile Gautier (1811 – 1872), who had been promised anonymity when it was
published. It was sung to a funeral march, written for an eminent
contemporary.

10) Me prenant pour un autre – The cleric
with whom he imagines being confused with his new identity is probably the
singing cleric, le Père Duval for whom Brassens had the nickname of « La
calotte chantante ». Brassens
describes Duval’s very human extra- curricular activities in “Les Trompettes de
laRenommée”. In
the 1950s several popular music hall acts emerged with a predominantly
religious appeal and , sometimes shared the stage with him. Later in the
poem, Brassens mentions “Les Petits Chanteurs à la Croix de Bois”, a children’s
choir popular in the 1950s, 1960s and beyond. They brought an audience
different in taste from that of Brassens and it is possible that he felt some
irritation.

11) chanson dont vous avez l' secret
- When in English we congratulate some-one by saying « You really have the
secret of doing or making something », there is no idea of secrecy but of
doing things particularly well. It is the same with “Vous en avez le
secret” in French.

12) J'entonnai Le Gorille avec Putain De Toi
– These two songs would have had a moral content. The first is a protest
against the horror of capital punishment. The second expresses
indignation about sexual deceit and betrayal. However the frank
realism of the two songs would cause offense to the narrowly religious.

13) le supplic' d'Abélard -The love affair of the 12th century
philosopher and theologian, Abélard and his student Héloise is one of history’s
most passionate and romantic true love stories. We are told that Héloise
(1101-1164) was quite beautiful and was outstanding for her learning. She
fell in love with her much older tutor, Pierre Abélard (1079- 1142) and they
became lovers. She bore him a child. Unfortunately, Héloise (1101-1164) was the
beloved niece of an important cleric, Canon Fulbert. He and the rest of
her family strongly disapproved of the affair. It is suspected that Canon
Fulbert paid some men to attack and castrate Abélard. After this mutilation,
Abélard became a monk. The correspondence of the lovers has survived for
posterity. Brassens is no doubt suggesting that the righteous anger of
religious zealots has always been capable of such extreme brutality.

4) muets du sérail - Brassens says
flippantly that if the indignant crowd had castrated him, he would have been
eligible to join the guard of eunuchs, who according to the history of the
Ottoman Empire, were the only men permitted to come near the women in the harem
of the Sultan. Some of these eunuchs had also had their tongues removed
so that they could not tell of the acts of strangulation on potential
contenders for the Sultanate they had been required to perform.

15) un' dam' de charité – This lady
bravely speaks up for a man being brutally attacked by group of men. She
would seem to have charity in the sense of love for fellow creatures in
need. Some commentators refer to a Catholic organisation “Les Dames de
Charité”, but Brassens does not use capitals. I would have liked to
convey the idea of a very proper lady to retain the humour of the incongruity
of the grounds for her arguments against the castration - the wilful reduction
of the provision of female sexual satisfaction!

16) un penchant pervers à prendre
obstinément Cupidon à l'envers - These words are in inverted commas
and are therefore those of the charitable lady. Many commentators
conclude that the lady and possibly Brassens was homophobic. In
mitigation, they point out that in 1960, when this song appeared, it was not
yet politically incorrect to express hostility to same-sex love. However,
we should perhaps not be too ready to see these words as homophobic on
Brassens’ part. Living in the world of theatre, Brassens was constantly
in the society of homosexuals and we have little evidence elsewhere that he
felt such hostility. More positive commentators say that we should not
see any judgemental element in these words but recognise that Brassens is
fulfilling his usual role as an observer of contemporary society.

18) Y'a déjà quelque temps que je ne vole
plus – In 1939, when he was seventeen, Brassens got into bad company in his
hometown of Sète. He was convicted of theft and this caused great
disgrace and upheaval in his life. See the full story at “Thestory of Georges
Brassens and his Jeanne”.

THE
RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF PASCAL TO WHICH BRASSENS REFERS

The
ideas of Pascal that Brassens is referring to in this song are found in one of
the longer fragments of his “Pensées” that is often known as Pascal’s wager:
“Le Pari de Pascal”.

Pascal
maintains that it is not possible to prove the existence of God by rational
means. However, influenced by his years of research into probability
theory in the sciences, he thought it useful to examine outcomes to be expected
for persons who accepted to live the Christian life and for persons who
declined. He presented these alternatives as a wager that we are invited
to make. All the same. Pascal believed that there was only one logical
choice.

His argument for making this religious wager runs as follows:

Accepting
that no satisfactory evidence is available, the expected value of a belief in
God is vastly greater than non-belief. This is because, if one believes
and commits oneself to a true Christian life and it turns out that God
really does exist, then the outcome for you is enormous good with the prospect
of eternal life. Yet if it turns out that God does not exist, you have
lost little if anything. Thus it is a matter of pure logic to adopt a
belief in God and to live the way of life that goes with it. Pascal
therefore invites his libertine friends to place their bets on the existence of
God.

His
argument that religious conviction is achieved after adopting a Christian
way of life.

In
his poem, Brassens says “Act
as if you believe and soon you’re a believer” - and Pascal said just
that! The following explanation consists largely of sentences from Pascal's
"Pensées"

Pascal
recommended habit as a more effective path to salvation than the exercise of
human thought. Whereas intellectual proof
convinces only the mind, habitually leading a Christian life
allows us to achieve the strongest and rawest conviction. The explanation
is that man is not only a mind but he is also an automaton and the discipline
that comes through the machine removes the need for the confirmation given by
reason. Pascal asks what will happen to you once you have taken the
decision to take the steps along this pathway and he gives his own reply that
you will be faithful, decent, humble, grateful, beneficent, sincere and true.
Thanks to the experience of the new life and the religious observance that you
have adopted, you will rise up from the level of intelligence to a new order
which is that of the heart. This move will involve your growing closer to
God. Finally, through the transcendence of the heart and of love, the the
ultimate conviction of the existence of God is achieved.

The highly intellectual Pascal was a very sincere Christian, whose belief, as
he showed above, came from personal intuition rather than from reasoning.
It was a faith that he absolutely needed to cope with the trials of his life.
Pascal was permanently disabled from the age of eighteen and never passed
a day without pain. He was able to maintain the quality of his life
with the help of the warm love of family and friends. Had he lived a few
years longer, his faith would have been cruelly tested by the destructive
autocracy of Church and State. I describe this in my biography of Pascal,
the link to which I will be posting later.

Saturday, 14 November 2015

This is a song of Brassens, the social reformer and with its
violent element also of Brassens, the anarchist. His attitude was shaped by the straitened
circumstances of the, nevertheless, happy family home of his childhood, when
money had been in short supply. Brassens’
song about the marriage of his parents "La Marche Nuptiale"tells the same story of a humble family fighting for its dignity.

GRAND-PÈRE

Grand-père
suivait en chantant

La route qui
mène à cent ans.

La mort lui fit,
au coin d'un bois,

L' coup du pèr'
François.(1)

L'avait donné de
son vivant

Tant de bonheur
à ses enfants

Qu'on fit, pour
lui en savoir gré,(2)

Tout pour
l'enterrer

Et l'on courut à
toutes jam-

-bes quérir une
bière, mais...

Comme on était
léger d'argent(3),

Le marchand nous
reçut à bras fermés.(4)

"Chez
l'épicier, pas d'argent, pas d'épices,

Chez la belle
Suzon, pas d'argent, pas de cuisse...(5)

Les morts de basse
condition

C'est pas de ma
juridiction."

Or, j'avais
hérité d' grand-père

Un' pair' de
bott's pointues

S'il y a des
coups d' pied què'que part qui s' perdent,(6)

C'lui-là toucha(7)
son but

C'est depuis ce
temps-là que le bon apôtre(8)

C'est depuis ce
temps-là que le bon apôtre

Ah ! c'est pas
joli...

Ah ! c'est pas
poli...

A un' fess' qui
dit merde à l'autre(9)

Bon papa(10),

Ne t'en fais
pas:

Nous en
viendrons

À bout de (11) tous
ces empêcheurs d'enterrer en rond(12)

Le mieux à faire
et le plus court,

Pour qu'
l'enterrement suivît son cours,

Fut de borner
nos prétentions

À un' bièr'
d'occasion.(13)

Contre un pot de
miel (14) on acquit

Les quatre
planches d'un mort qui

Rêvait d'offrir
quelques douceurs

À une âme soeur.

Et l'on courut à
toutes jam-

-bes quérir un
corbillard, mais...

Comme on était
léger d'argent,

Le marchand nous
reçut à bras fermés.

"Chez
l'épicier, pas d'argent, pas d'épices,

Chez la belle
Suzon, pas d'argent, pas de cuisse...

Les morts de
basse condition,

C'est pas de ma
juridiction."

Ma bott' partit,
mais je m' refuse

De dir' vers
quel endroit,

Ça rendrait les
dames confuses

Et je n'en ai
pas le droit

C'est depuis ce
temps-là que le bon apôtre

C'est depuis ce
temps-là que le bon apôtre

Ah ! c'est pas
joli...

Ah ! c'est pas
poli...

A un' fess' qui
dit merde à l'autre

Bon papa,

Ne t'en fais pas

Nous en
viendrons

À bout de tous
ces empêcheurs d'enterrer en rond

Le mieux à faire
et le plus court,

Pour qu'
l'enterrement suivît son cours,

Fut de porter
sur notre dos

L' funèbre
fardeau.

S'il eût pu
revivre un instant,

Grand-père
aurait été content

D'aller à sa
dernièr' demeur'

Comme un
empereur.

Et l'on courut à
toutes jam-

-bes quérir un
goupillon(15), mais...

Comme on était
léger d'argent,

Le marchand nous reçut à bras fermés.

"Chez
l'épicier, pas d'argent, pas d'épices,

Chez la belle
Suzon, pas d'argent, pas de cuisse...

Les morts de
basse condition,

C'est pas de ma
bénédiction."

Avant même que
le vicaire(16)

Ait pu lâcher un
cri,

J' lui bottai l'
cul au nom du Pèr',

Du Fils et du
Saint-Esprit.

C'est depuis ce
temps-là que le bon apôtre

C'est depuis ce
temps-là que le bon apôtre

Ah ! c'est pas
joli...

Ah ! c'est pas
poli...

A un' fess' qui
dit merde à l'autre.

Bon papa,

Ne t'en fais
pas:

Nous en
viendrons

À bout de tous
ces empêcheurs d'enterrer en rond

À bout de tous
ces empêcheurs d'enterrer en rond

Georges
Brassens

(1957 - Je me suis fait tout
petit, 7)

Grandpa walked the road,
singing,

That leads to his hundred
years.

Death sneaked on him down
in the woods

And snuffed him out short.

He had given in his life
time

Such happiness to his
children

That, gratefully, they did their
all

For his funeral.

And they ran fast as legs
would

Take them to get a coffin,
but

As they’d little ready
money

The man who dealt in them turned
them right down.

"At the grocers, no
money, no groceries

At fair Susie’s house, no
money, no fun …

Deaths low on the social
scale

Aren’t under my
jurisdiction.”

Now, I’d inherited from
Grandad

A pair of pointy boots

If there are kicks up the
bum somewhere done on the quiet

This pair was just the job.

The coffin maker has had
ever since

This same fine fellow has
had ever since

Ah, it is not nice

Ah, it’s not polite

A very twisted bum which
makes him wince.

Kind grandpa

Don't get upset

We will manage to

Sort out those who stand in
the way

Of burials due

The best thing to do and
quickest

So the funeral might be
carried out

Was to limit our requirements

To a second hand coffin

We acquired for a jar of
honey

Four planks from a dead man
who

Dreamt of giving some sweet
things

To a great soul-mate.

And we ran fast as legs
would

Take us to get a hearse,
but

As we’d little ready money

The man who dealt in them
turned us right down

"At the grocers, no
money, no groceries

At fair Susie’s house, no
money, no fun …

Deaths low on the social
scale

Are not in my
jurisdiction.”

My boot lashed out, but I refuse

To tell the spot aimed at

T’would embarrass the ladies

And I don’t have the right to

And the fine fellow has had
ever since

And the fine fellow has had
ever since

Ah, it is not nice

Ah, it’s not polite

A very twisted bum which
makes him wince.

Kind grandpa

Don't get upset

We will manage to

Sort out those who stand in
the way of burials due

The very best way and the
quickest

So the funeral might follow
its course

Was to carry on our backs

The funeral burden.

If he could’ve come back to life a bit

Grandfather would have been content

To go to his final place of rest

Just like an emperor

And we ran at full speed to
get

A holy water sprinkler, but

As we’d little ready money

The man who dealt in them
turned us right down.

"At the grocers, no
money, no groceries

At fair Susie’s house, no
money, no fun …

Deaths low on the social
scale

Are not in my benediction.”

Even before the curate

Could give forth a cry

I kicked his arse in name of the

Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

And the fine fellow has had
ever since

And the fine fellow has had
ever since

Ah, it is not nice

Ah, it’s not polite

A very twisted bum which
makes him wince.

Kind grandpa

Don't get upset

We will manage to

Sort out those who stand in
the way

Of burials due

Sort out those who stand in
the way

Of burials due

Translation notes

1)Faire le coup du père francais – He compares the
sudden, severe stroke that killed his grandfather, with symptoms, no doubt, of
fighting for breath, to a mortal attack by notorious French street robbers.The
dictionary, Reverso tells their story : Originally, in the course of the second half of the 19th century, the
real « coup du père François » could only be carried out if there
were two scoundrels, whose aim was to relieve of his money the average citizen,
who had the audacity and imprudence to walk out at night in ill-lit streets.The crime was carried out in the following
manner: the first of the attackers would get into conversation with the
stroller, with some everyday remark such as asking for a light or asking the
time. The accomplice, armed with a belt
to form a slip knot, came up from behind to strangle the victim, while he
retained the back of the victim against his own back. The latter, with his feet
of the ground was like a sack of potatoes, struggling to breathe and to free
himself from the noose, All the while the man at the front was free to
rummage through and empty his pockets. When
the theft was completed, the victim was generally in a very bad state, although
not necessarily dead. The partners in crime
would then recuperate the belt they had used and make off.

6)Des coups de pied quelque part qui se perdent- se perdre has an
idiomatic use. The dictionary says that an act
« qui se perd », is an act which is committed with impunity. I n modern English we talk of things “passing
under the radar”.

7)Toucha son but - We are reminded
that “toucher” also has the sense of “to hit one’s target” –hence the cry in
fencing: “touché!”

8)le
bon apôtre – Apôtre means apostle
However the word is sometimes used ironically for some-one who does not
live up to the standards pretended. My
translation - “fine fellow”- is meant to
be ironical

9)Il a un' fess' qui dit
merde à l'autre. Brassens gives this line a build up
as « not nice" and "impolite ». This phrase is making a play on the awful
expression: “Il a un oeil qui dit merde
à l’autre”, which means “He is cross-eyed”. In Brassens’ version “merde” may seem to have
reference to the physical locality. But in the original’ it would seem to have
its normal colloquial usage to express surprise or pain. The translation should therefore describe a
permanently deformed bottom, associated with pain and should shock the reader
or listener. Not easy! To restore the emphasis that I have lost , I
have added a rhyme.

10)Bon
Papa – In those days “Bon Papa” was a way of saying « Grandad »

12)Tous ces empêcheurs d'enterrer
en rond. The expression « les
empêcheurs de tourner/danser en rond » means the spoil-sports –. The
expression is applied to people who gratuitously stop you doing what you are fully entitled
to do.

13)Une bière d’occasion. In those days, we are told ,
planks from previously used coffins were on sale in cemeteries in France by the
common graves. I am puzzled how the dead
people came to vacate their coffins! I haven't the heart to research such a grim subject but I guess that some corpses buried in a common grave were emptied from the coffin first so that it or its timber could be resold,

14)Un pot de miel….offrir….à une âme soeur - The strange story is told that the Brassens
family bought the second-hand coffin from the family of a man who had recently died. The latter had stipulated that the price obtained for these boards would
have to be to enough to buy a jar of honey. This honey was to be be given to his great soul-mate.

15)Ça rendrait les dames confuses –
as a modern languages teacher, I used to irritate my classes, so they told me, by talking about
« faux amis ». The word
“confus” was one on my list. In fact “confus
has two meanings in French and one is the same meaning as in English – un
esprit confus is a confused mind.
However”confus” is a faux ami because the French also use it in a sense
not given to the word in English –it often means, as here, embarrassed/ashamed. He would have embarrassed the ladies by this final line, but he would not not have
confused them, if he had said frankly that he landed his pointed boot up the
arse of each of the “apostles”.

16)Un goupillon in Church use is a
sprinkler of holy water. In domestic
use, it is brush for cleaning jars

17)Le vicaire is the curate – the assistant
priest to the curé. The word “vicar”, as
used in the Anglican church is priest in charge of the Parish and thus would
translate as curé, if it needed to be translated into French. It is perhaps deliberate that Brassens makes it
a lesser priest, who behaves so badly in his story.

Please click here to return
to the alphabetical list of my Brassens selection